


the sly traveller, grasping glory

by bubblewrapstargirl



Series: the lone traveller multiverse [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Feels, M/M, Minor Character Death, Ramsay is his own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:59:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: One: Ramsay Bolton slithers through life, sharing his bed only with those he deeply cares for, though he would never admit it.Two: Ramsay envisions himself as a family man and finds he rather likes the idea.Three: Ramsay loses something precious but gains something that might prove to be equally so.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shannara810](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shannara810/gifts).



The wind was biting his cheeks with savage teeth. He pictured long spindly fingers of frost slicing beneath the thin layers of his skin, from where the back of his neck was unprotected. Great sheets of his flesh would peel off in layers as thin as parchment.

The landscape ahead was shrouded in fog, though he could barely perceive it. The dark was absolute, thick with the promise of horrors untold. A shifting black mass as far as the eye could see, like the swirl of ink in a shaken pot.

“Thought I might find you here,” whispered the familiar voice of his brother.

Had it been anyone else that had managed to sneak up on him unannounced, he would have tensed, and readied himself for a tussle. Bolton men were savages, and treated a bastard little better than dirt. Ramsay gave as good as he received. For that, was constantly berated by his lord father, due to scrapping in the dirt like a godless wildling. But if he rolled over and took their insults without defending himself, as a craven would, he knew the punishment would only be worse.

Roose Bolton was ever a contrary man. He rarely explained what he expected, in favour of vicious retribution for any perceived slight or inadequacy when an action displeased him. In this way, Ramsay had learnt never to anticipate instruction. His only path to comfort was to watch what Domeric did, and try to do the same. Naturally, this was infinitely more difficult to accomplish when his brother was sent to foster at the Vale. It was better to be out of the castle.

Ramsay spent the subsequent years in the woods and hills surrounding the Dreadfort, with his companions, terrorising the local wildlife and smallfolk. Nothing held his attention long however, and he set out on several long excursions toward the South with a vague idea of surprising Dom. He never got further than the Barrowlands before Lady Dustin persuaded him to take her hospitality. She had grown fond of him after all the time he had spent there with Dom. She was the closest kin to a mother figure he had ever had. Though they didn’t share blood, she was always decent to him. Less dismissive of a baseborn than most, perhaps because she would have been happy to have one herself with Brandon Stark.

Lady Dustin would set out well-fashioned, warm clothes in his guest chamber. They would share the differing contents of Dom’s letters over a bellyful of wine. And after several days solid reprieve from his overbearing father, she always sent him home to the Dreadfort with good food in his pack. If she was able to prevent herself from denouncing Myranda as a strumpet, for travelling as a lone woman among a band of brutish men, she would be the Southron Mother goddess given form.

Ramsay didn’t wander the battlements of Barrowton, restless in the night, as he did along the turrets of the Dreadfort. He wasn’t as comfortable with Lady Dustin’s holdfast as he was with the dim passageways and hidden nooks within his own home. He and Dom had spent their boyhood skittering through the dusty halls, clambering through disguised doors and concealing themselves within the dark-stained wooden furniture, during elaborate hiding games. They shared everything, and Ramsay could never hope to secret himself away from Dom.

He allowed himself to be gathered into his brother’s embrace now, warm breath thawing his frozen cheek as Dom informed him how cold he was, as if Ramsay was unaware.

“Come along,” Domeric said, in that motherly voice of concern he used, whenever he was troubled.

He lead the way back to his own chambers, the two of them stripping off quickly to their underclothes. Without talking, they burrowed beneath the furs on Dom’s large poster bed. Laying as though they were Ramsay’s beloved bitches, heaped together in the kennels for warmth. Dom curled about his back, burrowing his nose into Ramsay’s hair, breathing steady, deep and slow.

Ramsay was not fooled. He knew Dom was only biding his time. Waiting for the moment when Ramsay was relaxed enough, that leaving to return to his own icy chambers downstairs, would be too grim of a prospect.

Sure enough, Dom whispered; “Talk to me,” and was not deterred by Ramsay’s heavy sigh.

“I know something ails you,” Dom continued, “You know I only mean well.”

Ramsay stuffed his head further into his pillow, hoping to block out the inevitable conversation. Anything that make him feel weak made him furious. He immediately wanted to kill it, to destroy the detestable feeling. Or at least lash out and hurt something enough that the ringing in his ears would cease. But he couldn’t harm Dom, and so he was confined to tense muscles and trying to muffle his brother’s voice.

Dom stroked his hair, as though he were still a babe, supremely unmoved by Ramsay’s petulant display. Ramsay knew it was futile; his brother was as persistent as a lapping river. Gradually carving away at the rock, until it had cleaved a path across the land, to the outcome it sought. Patient and unyielding, that was Dom entire.

Eventually, he mumbled his reply, and hated himself for the words before the first sentence was even uttered.

“Why do you have to marry her?” Ramsay whined, only just managing to suppress the sudden urge to bite off his own tongue. “You barely know the wench. And her kin are all fat dollops of lard. She’ll grow too big to sit a horse and you’ll have to fashion her a steel chair, lest she snaps a wooden one.”

Dom clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “That is unkind. Wylla doesn’t over-eat, and we all grow plump in summertime, when supplies are plenty.”

“You don’t know her! She’s a scheming Southron whore.” Ramsay snarled, rolling over to face his brother. In the gloom, Dom’s stern countenance was shrouded by the shadows, but Ramsay felt the force of his displeasure like cuff to the ear from a gauntleted hand.

“I know change displeases you. But we cannot remain boys forever.” Dom said decisively, “I need an heir, and his mother may as well be from the wealthiest House in the North. And she is a Northern lady, despite her Andal blood and Faith in the Seven.”

“I don’t like her,” Ramsay insisted, as though that might make a difference.

Dom took his face between both his hands, and pressed a kiss against his forehead, chapped lips squashed firmly to skin and hair.

“You think she will come between us. That I will love any children she bares me above you, and no longer set aside time for us to spend together.” Dom stated quietly.

Ramsay bit down on his lower lip hard enough to taste the iron in his blood, rather than admit it was true. Dom didn’t need to hear confirmation to understand it, however.

“There is no one who could ever know all that we have suffered and shared and learnt.” Dom whispered, still huddled close, “You are right that I do not know her well, but I will come to. And she will know her place in this household, and it is not between us. You are a part of me. There is nothing and no one that could make me love you any less.”

Ramsay pressed his face into Domeric’s chest rather than reply. His fingers were claws as they dug into the vulnerable ribs of his brother, dragging the two of them deep into the hollow dark, where they belonged.


	2. Chapter 2

Ramsay smacked Myranda on her bare rump, delighting in the resulting jiggle of flesh as she bent over the edge of his bed, ferreting about looking for her dress. He had no desire to see her leave, he hadn't grown bored of her yet. He wanted to fuck some more, but authorities with more weight than him were preventing it this morn.

Lady Harlaw was hosting the morning meal in her rooms, and for some reason Ramsay was required to attend. He had tried to deny its importance to Myranda, who only bit his lips and scratched at his back. She knew better than to talk him out of anything, instead remaining silent as he moaned about the unwanted infringement on his private time. Father rarely wished to see him at meal times, or any other time, if he were to be honest about it. Why that should change just because his whore wanted to play the hostess of the castle, he didn't know.

In truth, Ramsay didn't entirely detest Gwynesse Harlaw. She didn't order him about imperiously like the petulant Wylla Manderly had, before she’d realised who he was. The Manderly wench looked down her nose at him because of his birth, but Lady Gwyn treated him much the same as his brother.

He arrived at her borrowed guest chambers, which were suspiciously close to the Lord’s rooms, in good stead. He was surprised to find himself the first person in attendance, though he supposed for the sake of appearance Father couldn't very well already be installed. There was no debate that they were definitely fucking though; Ramsay had heard he moans echoing from Father's rooms more than once. Lady Gwyn was probably old enough that Father didn't have to worry about begetting any more bastards.

Lady Gwyn greeted him warmly, as though he were a favoured pet, or a beloved step-son in truth. He allowed her to pour him tea before being surprised when she suggested they eat.

“Shouldn't we wait?” He said, picturing Father's face if he walked in on Ramsay devouring a plate of sausages and egg without his leave.

“In truth, no one else was invited,” replied Lady Gwyn, “I confess I wanted you all to myself.”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow at that, interested despite himself. Regardless of the lines on her face, Gwyn still had a fantastic pair of teats. He’d be happy to pillow his face on them.

The spread was good enough to distract him from all that however, and Ramsay took the opportunity to gore himself without fearing the consequences. Father would chastise him for truffling like a pig, and even Dom would frown if he ate too many sweetmeats or cakes. After a thoroughly satisfactory meal, Ramsay leaned back in his chair, resting his hands against his fatted stomach like a prize sow.

Gwyn hadn't bothered him with too many questions, but she had enquired after the quality of his sleep, and favoured activities. As though they were Southron fucks trilling over jam tarts in the rose garden. Ramsay found himself being honest, when she told him her nephew preferred the bow also, and asked which style he used. Ramsay was excellent at all forms of archery, and not afraid to tell her so.

They passed the time in pleasant quiet, and Ramsay found himself appreciating Gwyn’s ability to eat stoically without constant chatter. With the exception of Myranda, Ramsay found that women talked entirely too much about absolute nonsense. He endured many unpleasant feasts by whiling away the time imaging himself plucking out the Manderly wench's tongue with hot pincers.

“And now we come to the real reason I have lured you here.” Gwyn said ominously, before wriggling her eyebrows at him mischievously. Ramsay wasn't sure he was up to fucking his father's mistress right then, having just scoffed a bellyful of food, but he vowed to give it a valiant attempt.

He tugged his jerkin off with quick, economical movements when she asked, but was surprised when she stopped him from unlacing his breeches. Instead of leading him into her bedchamber, Gwyn herded him to stand on a wooden block, before turning away to rummage through her chest. She made a noise of triumph when she emerged from the depths of the trunk with a thin length of rope, knotted at regular intervals. A seamstress’ rope.

Ramsay allowed her to move his arms about to measure his shoulders and chest, forearms and muscles. He’d never had a castle seamstress take such effort over him; they usually just adjusted Father and Dom’s cast-offs to outfit him in. Gwyn took careful measurements, recording the amount of knots required with sharp scribbles of a quill.

“I’ve not had a husband since Balon’s war, so I’m out of practice with men’s attire. Don't you doubt my skill with the needle though: been making dresses for my sister and me for most of my life.” She sniffed, “Not that it made much difference. Had no reason to bother with anything elaborate for years.”

There was a smirk about her lips at that, and Ramsay understood the implications. He wondered what kind of filthy, whorish low-cut dresses and sheer smallclothes she’d fashioned for his father’s pleasure.

“Can't have a specimen such as yourself going about in scuffed leathers,” she sniffed. “Greenlanders can be bizarre, in the way they treat their sons by any women save their wife.”

Ramsay shrugged. There was little he could do to change Father's behaviour toward him. He was mostly focused on taking in the way Gwyn's eyes had roved over his body when she’d named him a ‘specimen’.

“Won't need such a warm hood as your father though,” Gwyn mused, “must have gotten that thick head of hair from your mother, aye?”

Ramsay grinned broadly at that, delighted. It took a brave one to allude to Father's encroaching baldness. And he couldn't remember when anyone of high birth had ever made comments at Lord Bolton's expense purely for his amusement.

Myranda had laughed when he revealed his father's mistress absolutely wanted to fuck him, and was wooing him with new clothes. Dom screwed his eyes firmly shut, pinching the bridge of his nose, and walked away without a word.

*

Ramsay hadn't given much thought to the phlegm-haired Lady Wylla’s whelp, save for Dom’s obvious excitement about it all. He didn't even seem disappointed that it was a girl. Ramsay wasn't interested in babes; all they did was wail, shit and spew vomit everywhere. And the whelp had a squashed head like a malformed potato. If Gwyn hadn't deposited the girl in his arms, he would never have bothered to seek her out.

As it was, he was inclined to be mindful of Gwyn, who began to insist that he attend all family functions. She talked over Wylla whenever the girl tried to ignore his contribution to the conversation. Loudly asking Ramsay for his opinion on the current topic. And the clothes she fashioned for him were on a par with Dom’s nicest garments. So Ramsay didn't shy away when she foisted the fat babe on him.

“She's the look of you about her,” the woman insisted, “what she gets from her father, he shares with you. The Bolton look.”

Ramsay didn't notice it until she pointed it out, but once he started looking he noted the waves on the girl’s head were a dark blonde, almost mousey and like to turn brown. Her ears were small and close to the head, like his own. Her eyes were icy hoarfrost like the pair he saw staring back at him in any glass. A Bolton girl, to be sure.

The more time he spent with Dom and his daughter, the less irritating he found the girl. She had been named Bethany for his brother's mother. When she was quiet, her fascination with the world was amusing, her grip strong when she clung onto Ramsay's fingers, her new teeth sharp when she bit down on his fist. He liked to tickle her tummy and the way she kicked him strongly in response.

Were it not for plump little Beth, he might never have thought to have babes of his own. Pregnancy was boring, he’d always believed: but babes had proved to be more interesting than he’d thought. Watching Beth crawl about the castle, smacking at things with her tiny hands and cooing at his prize bitches, was always amusing.

So when he entered Myranda’s small room in the servant’s quarters and saw her pouring a familiar brew from her chipped teapot, his stomach gave a queer lurch.

“Just a moment, my lord,” she sent him a smouldering look, her mud brown eyes glittering with lust. She blew on the teacup in her hand, waiting for it be cool enough to drink. Ramsay found himself briskly crossing the room before he knew what he was doing.

He placed a hand over the cup, slowly but firmly pressing it dow, until she was forced to set it down on her little table. She eyed him with confusion and mistrust. Myranda wasn't afraid of him, he knew, but she knew what he did to people that displeased him.

“Babes are boring.” She said, as though to remind him.

“Most,” Ramsay agreed, “Not Bolton babes.”

If she had reminded him of his bastardy then, he may not have been so rash, but she said not a word when he upended the moontea on the bare stone floor and hiked up her skirts.

When all was said and done, it took Gwyn's influence to get his father to bend, and allow him to marry Myranda in the godswood, in a finer dress than she’d ever even seen in her life.

Perhaps the best outcome, aside from Wylla incensed that she was expected to sit beside a bastard and his common folk wife at the lord’s table, was that many moons later, Ramsay was able to sneer at the Manderly wench and say; “Say what you like about common breeding stock. At least they know how to birth sons.”

Wylla sneered back at him, but Ramsay was too busy being self-satisfied to care. His boy had two puddles of mud for eyes, like his mother, and a familiar squashed potato head with tiny ears. The babe did his fair share of squalling and vomiting, but he was generally a quiet boy, always content to lie in his father's arms.

Sharing his bed with Myranda on a permanent basis was no hardship either; her small tits had swollen up to the size of ample oranges since being with child. Ramsay loved to tug and suckle on them, enjoying having a legitimate reason to loll about in bed with his wife all morn.


	3. Chapter 3

Ramsay woke in stages of bitter cold as though the thrice-damned Others were gnawing on his limbs, sucking the very marrow from his bones along with all the warmth. He slipped into sleep like plunging into frigid water, but when the darkness threatened to keep him, something always dragged him back to the surface. This happened repeatedly, until at last he woke lucid enough to realise he wasn’t alone. At first he thought the chest providing a furnace of heat for his back belonged to Dom, but he quickly realised the flesh wasn’t defined enough. Dom was hard, compact muscle with little pillowy fat to be found. The arms around him belonged to someone more soft. Pod.

Ramsay groaned heavily, trying to recall the events that would result in him bedding down with his squire like a poor hedge knight. His memory of the battle was fuzzy, his head still too clogged from milk of the poppy, no doubt. He slipped back into sleep before he could find a satisfactory answer.

He’d ended up with Podrick Payne as a squire, the same way he’d become a knight; it was all Dom’s idea. When Father had granted him leave to marry Myranda, Dom had insisted on knighting him. Southron knights could chose their name, and it would give Ramsay the chance to shake off the hated bastard name of Snow, so as not to pass it down to his son. There were no official knighted bastard names in the North, like Longrivers or Unflowers or any other ridiculous name in the South.

Ramsay had eventually settled on the name Redbolt, as it referenced the House from whence he came, and the Red Kings the Lords of the Dreadfort descended from. It took some getting used to, but gradually the name became a skin that fit him well. His son was named with the same principles in mind; Merik, for Myranda and Domeric. And Podrick was very good with the babe.

After the Lannisters screwed themselves out of favour with the Southron crown, Robb Stark had a whole contingent of Lannister bannermen in his castle he wanted separated and contained. He was adamant they were to be hostages, and not prisoners in any dungeon. When the Westerlands were conquered, these hostages could be used to bargain with the households they had come from. So a possey of Lannister bannermen had been shunted to the Dreadfort, the nervous, pudgy Podrick Payne being one of them. Domeric had pushed Ramsay to accept him as a squire, since he was one of the more prestigious highborns from the group. The rest of the hostages they had acquired were simple guardsmen from low, masterly houses and the like.

The boy, Podrick, was Tyrion Lannister’s former page, and unreasonably quiet. It became a game, to get Pod to impart an opinion. Ramsay, who already enjoyed the sound of his own chatter immensely, talked in even greater amounts in an effort to garner response. Pod was shy, but not clumsy or lackwitted, and immensely gentle, even in the face of his fears or battle. And he was kind to Merik, who was a slow child.

No one would describe Ramsay as a patient man, and had never been gentle. He was mindful of Merik’s young age and inability to understand what was expected of him, but at times frustration got the best of him. However, Ramsay had vowed to himself that his own child would never feel belittled and besieged by his father, as Roose had done to him. Instead of tormenting his own child, Ramsay took his anger out on prisoners, servants or in dangerous games with Myranda, depending on his mood. Neither of them were kind people, but as much as they could love, they loved their son.

In future years, Ramsay would be especially glad that Podrick had found his way to the Dreadfort. The Bolton master-at-arms was not half as inclined to be tolerant, of the extra assistance and training which Merik required to keep up, as Pod was. Ramsay's son wasn’t a simpleton by any means, but he needed repeated teaching to grasp a method, and did not make leaps of intuition on his own. Pod would come to spend a lot of time sparring with Merik, with wooden swords, and was always encouraging. Ramsay would watch from the shadows occasionally, and wonder how any man could be so unfailingly caring all the time, without discernable motive. But all that was to come later.

When Ned Stark called the banners, Ramsay took Podrick Payne South, knowing the boy had no close family, and no reason to feel deep regard for the place of his birth. The Boltons had treated him well, and it was reflected in the competent, heedful application of his duties. He cared for Ramsay’s belongings carefully, and outfitted him for battle well. Still, Ramsay had never expected to owe the boy his life.

Their skirmishes with Lannister men in the Riverlands had ended in the bleakest time in his life. Myranda had followed him to war, cloaking herself in the garb of a camp follower to avoid detection until it was too late. They had travelled too far to safely send her back by the time she revealed herself, and Ramsay was furious when she refused to stay in an allied castle. The best he could manage was to confine her to his tent when he went into battle, and assign her a guard. Naturally, she flouted that, and joined the archers, being better with the bow than most of them.

After the first two frays, he stopped bothering. Besides, there was nothing quite so satisfying as fighting alongside his wife in actual battle. When splattered in the entrails of their enemies, their blood was up, and they would fuck like rabid beasts. They garnered quite a reputation for themselves. It was a sight to see a beautiful woman and her lord husband fighting in tandem, but it was not worth the price they paid. 

The fight was done; a pathetic skirmish not worth writing to the Dreadfort to tell Gwyn about, making the outcome all the more horrific. A arrogant Southron fuck got his hands on a crossbow after their commander had surrendered. Ramsay didn’t see it, no one save for Myranda seemed to. A strangled voice denounced them as Northern savages, and then his wife was shoving him aside, out of the path of the loosed bolt. It skewered her flesh like a knife through pork. She crumpled to her knees, blood pouring from her mouth like the gush of a brook. Ramsay had her cradled in his arms before he could understand what was happening. The arrow had pierced her chest below her heart, not immediately fatal, but a mortal wound nethertheless.

“Ramsay,” she gasped, bubbles of blood popping at the edge of her purple-painted lips.

“Shhh,” He hushed her, unknowingly rocking her back and forth in an effort to comfort her. It did nothing to help with the pain. Behind them a scuffle was taking place, as the man who shot her was descended upon by furious Northmen. Domeric broke the man’s jaw with one blow of his fist, but Ramsay was deaf to it all.

“Do you remember, when we met?” She panted out, in great heaving gulps of air and agony.

She had been five years old, he just a little older. She had been the new kennel master’s daughter. Her hair was a bird’s nest of tangles, her dress no better than rags. She smelt of wet dog. And she had been the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he told her so.

She smiled at that, more of a grimace. “I was a peasant. You moulded me into something more. I owe you everything.” 

He shook his head, clinging to her as though he could keep her if he held on tight enough.

“Not this, never this.” He denied, but she only smiled her bloody, ghastly smile. Ramsay was vaguely aware of Dom dropping down on her other side, clutching her shaking hand.

“Take care of our boy,” she whispered, and Ramsay lurched forward to kiss her, feeling her lips weakly press back against his before she shuddered out her last breath, and died.

Though he was too gone to hear it, he howled like a dog with a limb cleaved off, blinded by tears as he screamed out his fury and rage into the unfeeling night. He knew Dom by touch alone, too submerged beneath grief to see him, recognising the scent of his brother beneath the dirt and sweat and copper tang of blood. Dom gathered him close like he was a babe, cradling Ramsay’s head to his chest, so that he might hide from the truth for a moment. So that he could shriek and wail and bawl somewhere safe. 

After Myranda’s death, he became reckless in the extreme. What little mercy he had inside him had died with her. After disembowelling and flaying the cunt that killed her, leaving him alive long enough to hang from a cross and set alight, something in Ramsay shattered. He garnered a reputation for insane brutality on the battlefield, so much that Robb Stark was wary of deploying him. Soon enough, those that met him in battle regularly threw down their arms rather than face him, after seeing what he had done to their comrades. He was rarely in a charitable enough mood to take prisoners, however, though they were often afforded a clean death for the simple reason that he preferred a challenge.

It was no surprise that he would push himself to his body’s limits, catching a dangerous chill that might have left his son an orphan, were it not for Pod. The youth was diligent, and there couldn’t be too many men willing to share a bed with Ramsay Redbolt, providing naked body heat, even when a maester ordered it so. But Pod was never one to shirk his duties. Which was why Ramsay found himself lying like a defiled maiden in his squire’s arms. 

When he rolled to face the still sleeping boy, he found that sometime during the war, Podrick had become a man grown. He’d shed his puppy fat over the hard march South, with the long hours training at the pike and sword and bow, though he wasn’t skilled in any of them. Pod wasn’t truly skilled in anything, unless you counted compassion as a skill, and Ramsay never had.

Pod blushed to find himself under scrutiny upon waking, and Ramsay was distantly horrified to feel himself stir at it. Ramsay was attracted by strength, or screaming. He did not arouse at gentle Southrons that blushed at coarse language and until lately had been doughy with layers of blubber. Ramsay resisted the urge to kick the younger boy from his bed. Knowing that he probably owed his life to his squire.

Denying it didn’t make the bizarre attraction go away. There was something about Pod that was so distinctively gentle, in a way that Bolton men, indeed all Northmen, were not. Men of the North were gruff and hardy and didn’t sigh when their Southron squires kneaded out the aches in their muscles.

“Why do you care so much?” He asked of Pod, when he caught the boy spoon-feeding a peasant child with his hands wrapped in thick bandages.

Pod shrugged, as was his wont when words could be avoided. Ramsay clucked, not content with that answer, and spent the remainder of his day following his squire about. There wasn’t much of interest to be found in the swamp Neck, as they waited for Robb Stark to order them South again. The Northern army had been pulled back until Robert Baratheon conceded to their demands. Pending that, Ramsay had nothing to distract him from his grief but encouraging letters from his step-mother, and Pod’s strange habits.

“They have no one watching over them. No one that cares if they live, or die.” Pod said, in a quiet moment, as they sat together and watched the sun set below the boggy horizon. “I know what it is to feel that.”

Ramsay shrugged. That was the general state of life, he found. The gods didn’t care if they lived or died, and neither did most people, unless they wanted something from you. He opened his mouth to say so to Pod, who fixed him with one of his soft looks before he could get a word out.

“It costs nothing to provide them with a little comfort. A piece of hope.”

“You’re giving them a false expectation. That in the future, they will encounter men as chivalrous as our doe-hearted Podrick Payne. They won't.”

Pod frowned. “I prefer to believe they might carry a good deed with them. Perhaps provide the same to another in need, repaying the kindness in some manner.”

Ramsay sighed heavily and fixed his eyes back on his surroundings, ever-wary of being set upon by lizard-lions.

“You’re too gentle, Podrick.” He bemoaned, “It will be the death of you.”

He tugged the boy to stand, and with the darkness to conceal them, kissed him to see what that goodness might taste of. Pod let out of muffled yelp of protest or confusion, hands fluttering about Ramsay’s chest, as though unsure if he could push him away without incurring consequence. After a long moment, Ramsay stepped back and licked his lips. Pod was blinking in stupefaction, but still his face was placid, unsullied by grudges or bitterness.

No man could endure in this world remaining so pliable and pure. Ramsay was only repaying the debt, by muddying the boy up a bit, that he might have a better chance of survival. So Ramsay told himself, when he took Pod by the hand and lead him back to his tent. The boy didn’t even put up a token resistance, allowing himself to be stripped and pressed into the furs and tasted all over. Even afterward, Ramsay couldn’t put a name to the taste, that unique quality that made Pod so sweet.

A thorough investigation was called for, and until they were called back to war, neither of them had anything better to do. It was a deeper distraction than Ramsay could have hoped for, knowing no wench could hold a candle to his Myranda. But Pod was something altogether different, and Ramsay always enjoyed the flavour of something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deliberately didn't tag this pairing cause I wanted you all to be genuinely surprised :)  
> What can I say, I'm collecting rarepairs like they're cats. There's something ridiculously satisfying about pairing the most vicious, vile character in the fandom with arguably the sweetest, most pure soul. Let me know if you're even the slightest bit convinced hahaha.  
> Jsyk, this is a permanent thing. Any fics set after this one chronologically will have Ramsay/Pod as a background pairing, even if I don't mention it directly.


End file.
